ue source, and give it an appearance of
originality. In fact, the period of Calippus containing 27,759 days, and
the octaeteris 2922 days, the sum, which is 30,681, is exactly the
number of days in eighty-four Julian years. But the addition was very
far from being an improvement on the work of Calippus; for instead of a
difference of only five hours and fifty-three minutes between the places
of the sun and moon, which was the whole error of the Calippic period,
this difference, in the period of eighty-four years, amounted to one
day, six hours and forty-one minutes. Buccherius places the beginning of
this cycle in the year 162 B.C.; Prideaux in the year 291 B.C. According
to the account of Prideaux, the fifth cycle must have begun in the year
46 of our era; and it was in this year, according to St Prosperus, that
the Christians began to employ the Jewish cycle of eighty-four years,
which they followed, though not uniformly, for the regulation of Easter,
till the time of the Council of Nice.

Soon after the Nicene council, the Jews, in imitation of the Christians,
abandoned the cycle of eighty-four years, and adopted that of Meton, by
which their lunisolar year is regulated at the present day. This
improvement was first proposed by Rabbi Samuel, rector of the Jewish
school of Sora in Mesopotamia, and was finally accomplished in the year
360 of our era by Rabbi Hillel, who introduced that form of the year
which the Jews at present follow, and which, they say, is to endure till
the coming of the Messiah.

Till the 15th century the Jews usually followed the era of the
Seleucidae or of Contracts. Since that time they have generally employed
a mundane era, and dated from the creation of the world, which,
according to their computation, took place 3760 years and about three
months before the beginning of our era. No rule can be given for
determining with certainty the day on which any given Jewish year begins
without entering into the minutiae of their irregular and complicated
calendar.

_Era of Constantinople._--This era, which is still used in the Greek
Church, and was followed by the Russians till the time of Peter the
Great, dates from the creation of the world. The Incarnation falls in
the year 5509, and corresponds, as in our era, with the fourth year of
the 194th Olympiad. The civil year commences with the 1st of September;
the ecclesiastical year sometimes with the 21st of March, sometimes with
the 1st of April. It